Access to Justice– Widening the scope By Maurice K Nyambe
What comes to mind when you hear the word “JUSTICE?” Chances are your mind is already drifting to judges, lawyers, courts, paralegals, and the like. It’s a long shot, but maybe even mob justice. Or perhaps the many forms of dispute resolution that we have in different cultural settings in Zambia. Indeed, interpretations of justice have largely focused on the formal side of things. Access to justice has therefore been understood largely in terms of formal systems of justice and the way in which people engage with these systems in order to have their problems solved. The UN’s definition sums this up: “Access to justice is the ability of people to seek and obtain a remedy through formal [or informal] institutions of justice for grievances in compliance with human rights standards” (UN, 2003).
Access to justice projects and programmes by civil society organisations (CSOs) have largely mirrored this interpretation, and their focus has therefore been on enhancing access to formal legal systems, primarily by strengthening access to paralegal services in Zambia.
3 Tigwepo - March, 2017
Tigwepo